James Stark, Sandman Slim, is working for a secret Christian agency that is intent on keeping the demons and magically infused citizens of LA in check. Meanwhile the entire world is falling apart, under a deluge of never ending rain LA is flooding and emptying out. God, the actual god, has had a breakdown and his split personalities have literally split him into various pieces, and are fighting each other. Stark trapped one part of the fractured deity down in hell, to get out of being Lucifer.

The Angra Om Ya, a powerful set of old gods, are attempting to come back while the chaos continues, and only Stark and his magic eight ball (a powerful weapon he doesn’t know how to use) can stop them.

There’s also a serial killer on the loose, cutting people up and putting them back together as vessels for the ancient gods to possess.

Can Stark work out the eight ball in time? Can he stop the serial killer? Will his girlfriend leave him? Will heaven collapse?

If you’re coming to a series six books in then I think you should be a bit lost, but Kadrey kindly provides enough explanation of the back story so that every makes sense.

The fact is, as a reader of the series, I remember all of it. I read a lot, I watch a lot, and most things pretty much trickle out of my sieve-like brain. But not Kadrey’s books. They stick in there, their weird scenes, characters and a hellish LA are imprinted on my memory. Sure, I don’t remember everything, but I remember most of it. These books are memorable, and that’s a lot more than I can say for most books.

Kadrey’s characters and writing has attitude. Stark would pick you up, slam your head against the wall, and kick you while you’re down.

The filmic quality of the books is finally realised with the new style covers for the paperbacks.

The Stark books are not likely to be anything like the books you’ve read before, and that’s more than a good thing, that’s a great thing. You don’t often find a writer who can quite tap into your nastiness and bring it out in book form, but Kadrey’s done just that.

The man is a genius, and while this isn’t the best of the Stark novels (the series does seem to be losing a bit of momentum), I’ll be sticking with it until the end, because it’s still the best urban fantasy ever.

Laymon’s plots are normally fairly linear, a group of girls are attacked whilst spending the night in an abandoned building, a family is attacked in the middle of the night and the daughter is the lone survivor and must run from the killers who will stop at nothing to track her down. All good stuff. All nice and simple.

But with this one we get something a little different. A little bit of mystery thrown in, but only a little bit.

Melanie Conway is at a recital when she collapses, having a fit which provides her a vision of her father or sister in a near-fatal accident. She grabs her boyfriend and heads back home from college, wondering who is hurt (visions are such pesky unreliable things!) and what’s happened, not being able to get either of them on the telephone.

Penny Conway receives a horrible message on her answer phone. A man, a pervert, calls three times, each time leaving a nasty, sick message for her. He says he’s coming to get her, to do the things he said he would.

When the Conway sisters and Melanie’s boyfriend meet up at the girls’ father home, they find his new wife might be sleeping with their dad’s partner. Not only that but the lovers may have actually committed the accident that had left their father in a coma.

This novel has much more mystery than most Laymon books. Unfortunately that doesn’t really make it better. Laymon is best when he’s driving us forward at break-neck speed, ploughing on with the action-fuelled plot. This book really only kicks into gear towards the end.

There nothing really wrong with the book, Laymon always writes readable books. But having read a few of his before, he writes fast food horror novels, exciting, fun and entertaining, but leaving nothing memorable behind.

Good fun, but nothing special and not even one of Laymon’s better books.

Midway through the 21st century there is a huge reliance on psycho-therapy using nano-technology monitors to keep society sane and well-adjusted.

A billionaire commits suicide after spending an evening with a Yox (latest immersive technology) pornstar and escort.

A man is regularly visiting the Omphalos, a strange building filled with the dead who are waiting to be brought back to life when the technology arrives.

Jill is a Thinker, a massive super intelligent computer.

Mary Choy is a Seattle Police Detective trying to find out the truth about the billionaire’s suicide.

Then people’s therapy monitors start to break down, sending society in a paroxysm of depression and mental instability, a group of criminals plans to invade Ompholas and steal the treasures within, the pornstar is attacked, Jill is hacked, and Mary Choy starts to literally fall apart.

This is what SF is all about. Great ideas and good plotting. The characters are merely there to give us some focus, not really to get attached to. There are some really good ideas, most of which aren’t outdated despite this book being ten years old. The plotting is where the book really shows its strength, as the various separate strands come together in a complex climax. OK, so you can see where most of this is coming from before the end, and there aren’t really any surprises, in fact there nothing really spectacular at all. This is good solid SF, some nice ideas, some good plotting, decent characters, but nothing special, nothing memorable. All the right ingredients, but really nothing to make it stand out.